Optical Coherence Tomography and Raman Spectroscopy can Predict Germination of Cotton Seeds

Many different techniques exist to optically study physiologically relevant parameters in biological samples, such as seeds, non-destructively. For example, optical coherence tomography (OCT) can be used to measure seed coat thickness non-invasively [1]. On the other hand, Raman spectroscopy can be used to assess physiological parameters in vivo in plants [2], [3]. Vibrational spectroscopy is also routinely used to measure seed composition, however mostly the spectra measured from many seeds are averaged together to obtain robust results. One of the advantages of being able to measure physiological parameters of seeds non-destructively, is that this allows to grow the seeds and correlate the measured parameters with characteristics of the plant. When physiological parameters can be obtained from single seeds, this can be used to select seeds for better outputs at the single plant level. Examples would be that damaged seeds are expected to not produce a seedling, the hypothesis that seedlings grown from larger seeds are more resilient, and that seed composition influences seedling vigor.